Sales lift for Standard Life’s Irish arm

THE Irish arm of financial services giant Standard Life generated a 17% year-on-year increase in life and pension sales in the first half of this year.

The Edinburgh-headquartered business has around 100,000 customers in Ireland and nearly 71,000 shareholders here.

Domestic net inflows for Ireland, over the period in question — basically measuring the level to which new business value outweighs the value of business lost — grew by over 600% to £70 million (€85m).